Beatles are the gear

Fans with posters wait for the Beatles to arrive at the Garden

Beatles?  They’re ‘Gear’ Man

August 27, 1964

Cincinnati (AP) – Four mop-topped lads from Liverpool headed into Cincinnati today and, to use a teen-age phrase, this metropolitan area faced a frantic and “fantabulous” time.

“They’re ‘gear’ man,” (“the moistest”)—sighed 14 year old Karol Burgess, squealed in delight at the hardly expected acquisition of two tickets to tonight’s show by the Beatles before a capacity 13,000 others in Cincinnati Gardens.

Karol had proved pretty “gear” herself by appealing, in a newspaper want ad, for the prized pasteboards.  She got them from Kathy Reid, 13, who had decided, after reading of near-riots at the scene of Beatle concerts, that discretion was the better part of valor and so, to remain at home.

“Fantabulous” was Kathy’s word for the four English youths who, here for the third stop on their American tour, have marched rough-shod in four-four time into the consciousness and languages of teenagers, if not always those of their parents.

Some 100 policemen were ordered to duty around Cincinnati Gardens, some to report hours before the 8pm opening; approximately 40 others were assigned to their uptown hotel and another 100 private guards were employed by a group of local disc jockey who are sponsoring the show.